Opinion : \'Moonbeam\' history

A 30-year-old nickname that made its way back to the headlines of early 2011 has had many in the American media digging up old newspaper articles to find out why, and how, California’s new – and former – top excecutive ended up being labeled as “Governor Moonbeam.”

How I wish Mike Royko could see the news now.

If you do not know the name Royko, you are either very young, or very unfamiliar with 20th Century American newspaper history. He was the Roger Staubach/Hank Aaron/name your favorite star of newspapering from the 60s until his death in 1997. That is to say: He was the best.

While he began writing mostly about Chicago life and politics, as he became more famous, he began to include national events and people.

Royko loved to make fun of California. He was one of Ronald Reagan’s first critics. Then when Jerry Brown became governor, and later a repeated presidential candidate in the 1970s, Royko gave him the “Moonbeam” nickname. He began referring to Brown as Moonbeam.

It caught on.

But later on, Royko came to think differently of Gov. Brown. He wrote columns in which he pleaded with people to stop calling Brown “Moonbeam.” He made fun of himself for making up that nickname. He said that Brown was more normal than any of the Democratic candidates for President in 1991.

Brown, of course, lost that race. Bill Clinton – another president Royko loved to mock – beat Brown in the Democratic primaries in 1992.

Royko died in 1997. He probably turned over in his grave in 2003, when another actor – Schwarzenegger – announced that he planned to run for governor, and won.

Schwarzenegger was unable to fix the financial crisis that swept him to office in 2003; he left office this year. This week, as Brown was sworn in, CNN put the word “Moonbeam” on the screen in big letters.

I have been reading my old Royko books lately. He was the best.

But when it comes to his labeling of Gov. Brown was Moonbeam, I think he would probably say, “I wish those people would remember something else that I wrote.”

If anything good comes out of the latest "Moonbeam" reminder, I hope it's this: That people will spend some time figuring out what makes a columnist so good that a nickname he applied 35 years ago still sticks, despite his best efforts to erase it. Royko was that good. We in this business still owe it to him, and to our readers, to figure out what made him so great.